STALIN'S COUP.

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 153, 29 June 1940, Page 8

STALIN'S COUP.

While Hitler and Mussolini are re-drawing the map of western Europe—but only provisionally, knowing that Britain is not defeated Stalin has acted swiftly to make a change in eastern Europe. He has re-annexed Bessarabia, Rumania's north-eastern province, with a population of about three millions, and also northern Bukovina, which Rumania acquired from Austria after the last war. This is the first major change made in the Balkans by this war, but it is unlikely to be the last. It is a change made obviously with the consent, the reluctant consent, of Germany and Italy. It brings Russian! influence further towards the Mediterranean and the Adriatic, and paves the way for further advances when Stalin, who knows how to wait, wishes | to make them. Stalin is not satisfied with the neutrality of the Balkans. He wants Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Turkey to become satellites of the Soviet. To that end for some time he has been making intermittent displays of force at suggestive places, and the effects of those displays will be increased now that he has demonstrated his capacity for swift action.

Meanwhile, Germany stands by, paying the price of Russia's neutrality and wondering how long the price is to be. Hungary, already under the German wing, reiterates her own aspirations to parts of Rumanian territory. Hungary can attain her ends only with German support, and German support may now be given only at the risk of a clash with Soviet Russia. It may not be given at all if Rumania fulfils the undertaking forced on her to supply Germany's war needs. Stalin's policy of maximum gains with minimum risks has paid bira well to date, but the time when liis ideas of Russia's proper living space will conflict with Germany's and Italy's is appreciably nearer.